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The Cisco
® Network Analysis Module (NAM) is a powerful integrated network monitoring solution designed to give you more visibility into your network than ever before. It shows you what applications are running on your network and how they are performing, to help you proactively resolve problems before they affect users, plan for changes in resource usage, and manage valuable network resources. Because the Cisco NAM provides visibility for unparalled traffic monitoring and simplified troubleshooting, it is ideally suited for today's dynamic, evolving enterprises.

The innovative design of the Cisco NAM combines a rich set of embedded data collection and analysis capabilities with a remotely accessible, Web-based management console, all of which reside on a single blade that is easily installed into Cisco Catalyst
® 6500 Series Switches, Cisco 7600 Series Routers, or Cisco Integrated Services Routers. The Cisco NAM's embedded Web-based Traffic Analyzer console offers quick access to configuration menus and presents easy-to-read performance reports on data, voice, and video traffic. The Cisco NAM provides not only the ability to analyze packets, but also the ability to analyze them from within the switch or router itself, giving you clear insight into how the network is being used and how your users experience the services the network offers.

Provides visibility into traffic from local and remote switches and routers using a variety of data sources, such as Switch Port Analyzer (SPAN) and NetFlow, for comprehensive traffic monitoring.

Easy-to-access traffic analysis

Includes an embedded Traffic Analyzer Web interface that can be accessed from any desktop, eliminating the need to send personnel to remote sites or haul large amounts of data to the central site.

Comprehensive network and application monitoring

Automatically identifies hundreds of protocols and provides real-time and historical performance reports on the hosts, conversations, and applications using critical network resources.

Web-based captures for anytime, anywhere troubleshooting

Captures and decodes the packet to help resolve acute problems before they affect users. Captures can be performed using a Web browser from any desktop, and the decodes can be readily viewed through the Traffic Analyzer GUI while the data is still being captured. Captures can also be triggered based on thresholds.

Built-in application response time monitoring

Tracks response times to pinpoint application problems to the network or to the server.

Advanced monitoring for IP-based services

Analyzes VoIP traffic in near real-time and provides notification on when call quality fails to meet a user-defined quality threshold. Monitors differentiated services for VoIP and other critical traffic to help validate and tune planning assumptions and QoS allocations, and to detect incorrectly marked or unauthorized traffic.

Serves as a rich source of data for Cisco Performance Visibility Manager (PVM), a centralized performance management software application. Cisco PVM collects data from multiple Cisco NAMs to provide a centralized view of network performance, correlate application response times, localize the cause of performance problems, and account for the impact of other traffic on performance.

Trace data source for Cisco AAS

Serves as a source of data for the Cisco Application Analysis Solution (AAS). Cisco AAS can collect traces from the Cisco NAM to help model and predict application performance under varying configurations and network conditions to facilitate network planning decisions.

NEW FEATURES

Cisco Systems
® offers valuable new features and enhancements in Cisco NAM Software 3.5. These features include the
following (Table 2):

Save large amounts of raw data captures to a network storage device, such as a server or storage area network (SAN), for near real-time or post-event analysis. The amount of raw data captured is limited only by the storage area of your storage device.

Reports export

Schedule the export of your historical reports or export them on-demand. You can use e-mail or FTP to send your reports. Choose from a range of formats including CSV, XML, PDF, and HTML.

New reports

View historical reports on top protocols, hosts, and conversations on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Troubleshoot a problem by going back in time to see the top talkers of yesterday or last week, and so on.

ERSPAN support

The Encapsulated Remote SPAN (ERSPAN) feature of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco 7600 Series enables traffic to be captured and encapsulated into a Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) packet. The encapsulated packet can then be sent through any Layer 3 network as a GRE tunneled packet. The Cisco NAM now supports ERSPAN to broaden your traffic monitoring reach to remote parts of the network.

Enhanced URL monitoring

Learn how much traffic URL-based content is generating and who is using it. This extends the URL monitoring feature to filter content type in addition to host and path.

Capture analysis toolset

New tools help organize and simplify the analysis of capture data to quicken problem resolution.

The Virtual SPAN (VSPAN) feature of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco 7600 Series allows the use of a single actual SPAN session to enable multiple virtual SPAN sessions, helping meet requirements for analyzing large traffic volumes or deploying multiple services modules requiring SPAN sessions. Cisco NAM support for VSPAN permits you to save precious SPAN sessions by sending a single SPAN session to the NAM as well as to other VSPAN destinations.

Protocol updates

Protocol updates, including the addition of SigTran and Mobile IP protocols, increase visibility for monitoring, troubleshooting, and reporting.

SIP support

Monitor voice quality, including packet loss and jitter, for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This supplements voice-quality monitoring support for Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP), Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP), and H.323.

Video quality monitoring

Monitor video streams in real-time. Receive proactive alerts if picture quality degrades to help pinpoint the cause of the degradation and correct it before call centers are overwhelmed.

PLATFORM REQUIREMENTS

Cisco NAM Software 3.5 is supported on the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco 7600 Series NAM (available in two hardware versions, NAM-1 and NAM-2), and on the Cisco Branch Routers Series NAM (NM-NAM). The Cisco Branch Routers Series NAM is integrated in the Cisco 2600XM, 2800, 3660, 3700, and 3800 Series multiservice routers and integrated services routers. Cisco NAM Software 3.5 is not supported on the first-generation Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series NAM (WS-X6380-NAM).

Information regarding system (switch or router) hardware and software requirements can be found in the Cisco NAM Software 3.5 release notes posted on Cisco.com.

AVAILABILITY

Cisco NAM Software 3.5 will be available in July 2006, as part of new NAM-1, NAM-2, and NM-NAM hardware orders. At that time, current Cisco NAM customers can download the new release from the Cisco.com Software Center at no charge using their Cisco SMARTnet
® contract access privileges.